Vincas Sercevičius (26 March 1925 – 23 December 2003) was a Lithuanian

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player and coach. Together with Stepas Butautas, Vytautas Kulakauskas,

Justinas Lagunavičius Justinas Lagunavičius (4 September 1924 – 15 July 1997) was a Lithuanian basketball player who competed for the Soviet Union in the 1952 Summer Olympics. He trained at VSS Žalgiris in Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Li ...

and Kazys Petkevičius, he was considered as one of the finest Lithuanian basketball players during the first post-war decades. Sercevičius played for the center position and had the outstanding ability to shoot the

hook shot In basketball, a hook shot is a play where the offensive player, usually turned perpendicular to the basket, gently throws the ball using a sweeping motion of the arm farther from the basket in an upward arc with a follow-through which ends over ...

s with both hands, which earned him the nickname of "The Second Lubinas". However, his international career was impeded by his anti-Soviet political record.

Biography

According to Antanas Kuzdys, Sercevičius was arrested because he refused to purposefully lose a basketball match to a team from Moscow in 1945. He was arrested and sent to mines in

Vorkuta Vorkuta (; ; Nenets languages, Nenets for "the abundance of bears", "bear corner") is a coal-mining types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin a ...

by the Soviets. Following his return to Lithuania, he was a candidate to the

Soviet Union national basketball team The Soviet Union men's national basketball team () was the national basketball team that represented the Soviet Union in international competitions. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the successor countries all set up their own ...

for four straight years, including the team sent to EuroBasket 1947 where it won gold. His place was taken by another Lithuanian,

. He was not selected because was not allowed to leave the

Soviet Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

due to his arrest. As a student at Lithuanian National Institute of Physical Education (LVKKI), Sercevičius played for the institute's team. He was also a member of the Lithuania SSR men's national basketball team (1945–51), playing 11 matches and scoring 73 points. Upon graduation in 1951, he joined the legendary Lithuanian club Žalgiris. He coached Žalgiris in 1951 and 1953–55. During his career, Sercevičius won five Lithuanian and two Soviet championships. After retirement from active sport, he continued to teach at the Lithuanian National Institute of Physical Education until his retirement in 1984. In 1990s, during one of his interviews, he described his career by telling: "My sporting period was beside

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

and

Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982 as well as the fourth chairman of the Presidium ...

and we cannot consider that it went as it could went. <…> Being young we had in mind that we represent Kaunas, the republic in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, we fought for our nation, ideas, we acquainted the people that there is such Pabaltijis, such cities. <…> There was a stimulus that we fight for Lithuania and there were games when we reached victories during the crucial moments, however the satisfaction wasn’t complete because we competed for the

Lithuanian SSR The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; ; ), also known as Soviet Lithuania or simply Lithuania, was '' de facto'' one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1940–1941 and 1944–1990. After 1946, its terr ...

. <…> Personally, I haven't played till 1940. I was way too young and now I'm already too old".Telecast "Mūsų krepšinis" (Season: 1; Episode: 1; Quotation begins at 49:21)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sercevicius, Vincas 1925 births 2003 deaths BC Žalgiris players Lithuanian basketball coaches Lithuanian men's basketball players Soviet basketball coaches Soviet men's basketball players Sportspeople from Kėdainiai Basketball players from Kaunas County People from Kėdainiai District Municipality Lithuanian Gulag detainees Centers (basketball)